Chirp! is one year old!

Exactly one year ago Chirp! was released into the AppStore! It's been a very exciting year - things move at breakneck speed in the iPhone app world and for much of the year things have rushed past in a blur. Chirp! became Chirp! Europe, Chirp! USA was released, various Lite versions have come and gone, new features have been added, and many extra birds have been added. But Chirp! still isn't nearly at the place I want it to be - so many features I still want to add, so many birds that can be added. So many other countries that could be covered!

Highlights of the year include:
* Reaching #1 in the Education section in Switzerland shortly after launch, and staying there for ages. The Swiss were our first big fans, giving us our first taste of success.
* Discovering that my favourite radio presenter, Simon Mayo, is a fan. I listen to his show every afternoon so it was so exciting when he asked for the Bittern to be added. (Was that Chirp! I heard when he played a Magpie sound to a guest last week?)
* Good sales throughout the summer in Europe and the US, staying in the top 20 in most of the countries that Chirp! covers.
* Getting into the top 100 of all apps in the Netherlands, and the top 50 of all apps in Switzerland.
* The most recent highlight, is seeing Chirp! Europe featured on the Apple website in Britain, France and Germany.
* And finally, throughout the year, meeting so any nice people - through email, Twitter and Facebook - thank you all for the encouragment, the excellent suggestions and general feedback. It really is due to you all that we have worked so hard at improving Chirp!

What a great year for a simple bird song app!

Latest news

It's been very quiet here on the blog recently, as well as on Twitter and Facebook. This is because we have been working flat out on our ambitious new project - a bird guide for Britain. For a long time I wasn't sure if this bird guide would ever become a reality, but I realised today that it won't be much longer before it will be ready for release! There are already a few bird guides available for the UK, but most are rather small and none make use of the iPhone's features, so we hope that ours will be a success.

I'll be glad when it is released and we can get back to working full-time on Chirp! There are so many new features we want to add! Now that the number of birds in each app has increased so much, we really need to add a search feature, and we've also been asked for a way of marking favourites. We also have a exciting new feature halfway done, but it isn't quite right yet - I am really looking forward to adding this feature as I think it will be great for the dark winter days when birds are silent..... ;).

New updates are due out for Chirp any time now - they are with Apple and we are just waiting for them to be released. The Chirp! USA update is a Thanksgiving special, so I hope it is released in time!

Simon Mayo and the Bittern

As I have mentioned before I am a huge fan of Simon Mayo, the BBC radio presenter, and am thrilled that he is a fan of Chirp! So when he requested the Bittern as an addition, I rushed to the sound files (and the translators) to add it straight away. It is a great sound and a fascinating bird, but what I hadn't taken into account is that because the Bittern's call is so low in frequency, it is very hard to hear it through the small speakers of the iPhone or iPod. The deep booming call, that can carry for half a mile or more in the wild, sounds great on the computer but when I added it into Chirp and tried it out on the iPod it was completely inaudible, and if I increased the volume it simply distorted. Ho hum. After much experimentation I think I have an acceptable sound and it is in the latest update of Chirp! Europe. But you may just need to turn the volume up.....

Current state of play

Rather alarmingly, the summer is almost over and I'm reviewing how much we've achieved. Updates have been very slow over the past couple of months - Apple are routinely taking longer than they used to, so the days of the weekly updates are over, and on top of that we had all the problems with the Wikipedia link.

But we have managed to get some new features and new birds in. I'm pleased to say that the Corncrake has now been added to the European version - what a great sound. The US version now includes 110 birds, and the next update will add a new feature - sorting by song style. This groups the sounds into categories such as Hoots and Coos, High Pitched, or Long and tuneful. This will be coming to the European version soon.

Don't forget to let us know what you think of the new features and continue to ask for new birds!

Wiki woes

It's been a long time since my last post, and even longer since the last updates to Chirp!. I submitted updates to both versions of Chirp at the beginning of July, as soon as the previous updates were accepted, but quickly ran into problems with both apps because of Apple's new ratings system and Wikipedia access.

About a week after submission of each update, I received an email from Apple's reviewer saying that the update was rejected due to being incorrectly rated. The apps allow "unfiltered access to Wikipedia.org, where content with mature or suggestive themes can be accessed". Unfortunately no further advice or guidance has been given from Apple, and my requests for clarification have not been answered.

The Wiki button in each app links to a specific wiki page about a bird. It is theoretically possible that from this starting point one could access mature and suggestive themes, but then it is also theoretically possible that much worse content could be accessed. So what rating would Apple like me to submit the apps? I don't know and they won't say.

I added a setting which would allow parents to hide the Wiki button, but Apple can't tell me if this will help.
I have just resubmitted the updates at a 9+ rating, with a button to hide the Wiki button, so I hope this will be enough to satisfy the reviewer. Let's hope that both updates will be out in another week.

Update news

I've had a couple of queries about the lack of updates recently, so I'd just like to reassure everyone that more updates are on the way. Either due to a change of policy or due to the distractions of the new iPhone launch, Apple's approval time for updates has increased from 4-7 days to around 14 days. Updates to both the USA version and the European version have been with them for over a week so I hope they will be in the store sometime next week. If the interval between updates has to be longer, I hope to compensate by adding more birds each time.

The next European update includes:

• a new Dutch translation

* bird names available in Finnish

* new birds: Kingfisher, Curlew, Lapwing and Herring Gull

The next USA update includes:

• changes to the quiz

• new birds: Eastern Wood-Pewee, Western Wood-Pewee, Eastern Meadowlark, Western Meadowlark, Yellow Warbler, Chestnut-sided Warbler

More birds are waiting to be added so I hope the updates will go through soon!

Age range

I've had a couple of nice emails recently which give an idea of the age range of Chirp! users. First was a link to a family video showing 23 month old George and his amazing skills at bird recognition - apparently he has liked birds since he was old enough to point :). You can see the video and read George's dad's blog here: http://bit.ly/GUbnT

As for grown-up users, I know there are several that are older-than- the-average-iPhone-user. It's interesting how an interest in technology isn't so much linked to age, but to attitude. When people ask me what I do, I often have to explain what an iPhone is - almost always to anyone over 50 but even to a 20-year old on one occasion. Yet today I received an email from an 80 year old Chirp user :). Nice.